ou 



iAylo 




Book. 



ts^ 



Printed for Private Circu.la.tion. 




BIOGRAPHY 



OF A 



Pioneer Manufacturer. 



ZENAS CRANK, 

DALTON, MASS., 
1799. 



Pioneer Paper-Making 
IN BERKSHIRE. 



Life, Life Work and Influenxe of 

ZEN AS CRANB. 



The first step is half the journey: 
It is the first step that costs." 



0- /*> 
By j/WA>rSMITH, 

Author of " The History of Paper Making;' Etc. 






CLARK W. BRYAN & COMPANY, Printers, 
HoLYOKE, Mass., and New York City. 



.1^ 



(S 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

OF 

THE PIONEER PAPER MANUFACTURER OF 
BERKSHIRE COUNTY, MASS. 



^^^HE story of an enterprising young man 

^ J I of good character, just entering upon 

business life, buoyant with youthful hope 

and inspired by an honorable ambition, is 

of universal interest. It must be a very 

) dreary and selfish heart that does not 

vividly sympathize with his 

" Dream of doing 
And the other dream of done, 
The first glow in the pursuing, 
The first joy in the begun, 
First recoil from incompletion in the face of what is won." 

And this, although the adventurer is only set- 
ting out upon a beaten track, and we well know 
the obstacles and the advantages which it may 
present to him. But, if he is venturing into 



6 Zenas Crane. 

almost unknown power of steam, then, for the 
most part dashed on in idle play ; the lakes, 
whose waters are now treasured up by costly 
dams, were counted by the agricultural popula- 
tion as so much waste surface. 

There were few manufactories of any kind 
in all America; but, prominent among them, 
were paper mills which had sprung up in 
various parts of the country — principally in 
Pennsylvania and other Middle States, with 
perhaps fifteen of them, of small capacity, in 
Eastern Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode 
Island. 

Such was the state of the paper and other 
manufactories of New England and other parts 
of America, when in the summer of the year 
1 799, Zenas Crane, a young paper-maker, set 
out from Worcester, Mass., westward, to pros- 
pect for a site upon which to establish himself 
in business. We will attempt a brief sketch of 
his life both before and after that date. 

Zenas Crane was born at Canton, Norfolk 
County, Mass., May 9, 1777, being the son of 
Stephen and Susannah (Babcock) Crane. His 
father's home was in that corner of Canton, which 
is now closely embraced by the boundaries of 
Dedham, Hyde Park, and Milton. Hyde Park, 



Zenas Crane. 7 

now a place of small territory but filled with the 
residences of gentlemen doing business in Bos- 
ton, was taken from three older towns ; that por- 
tion adjoining Canton being in 1777 a part of 
Milton. The Blue Hills, Punkapoag Lake, Ne- 
ponset river, and many fine smaller streams 
render the whole region one of great natural 
beauty, which was early recognized by the cul- 
tured and wealthy citizens of Boston, from which 
it is only ten or fifteen miles distant ; and in 
colonial times several of the most noted had 
country houses here. Among them was Thomas 
Hutchinson, the Royal Governor and the histo- 
rian of the Province, whose summer residence 
was at Milton Hill. We mention these facts, 
not only as describing the youthful home of the 
subject of this sketch, although that would of 
itself give them interest for us, but because they 
have a direct and definite bearing upon our 
whole story. 

In the year 1730, Daniel Henchman, an enter- 
prising bookseller of Boston, having received 
some encouragement from the General Court, 
built, at Milton, the first paper mill in New Eng- 
land, and in 1731 exhibited to his august patrons 
some creditable specimens of its work. After a 
few years, it ceased operation from lack of a 



8 Zenas Crane. 

skilled workman. The year 1 760, however saw 
it revive, "a citizen of Boston" having obtained 
for a British soldier stationed there a furlough 
long enough to enable him to put the mill in 
operation and initiate some person or persons 
into its mysteries. Hutchinson was at this time 
assiduous to ingratiate himself with his country- 
men, as well as with the English government, 
which in its turn was anxious to bind him to its 
interests. It was probably his influence which 
obtained the favor of the furlough, so contrary to 
the ordinary repressive policy of the home gov- 
ernment towards colonial manufactures. 

The rescued manufacture flourished, although 
for many years upon a small scale, and was an 
object of public interest, for we find this quaint 
announcement in the Newsletter of 1769: 

" The bell-cart will go through Boston, before the end of next 
month, to collect rags for the paper mill at Milton, when all people 
that will encourage the paper manufacturing may dispose of them. 

Rags are as beauties that concealed lie, 

But when in paper, how they charm the eye ; 

Pray save your rags, new beauties to discover, 

For paper truly every one's a lover. 

By pen and press such knowledge is displayed 

As wouldn't exist, if paper was not made. 

Wisdom of things, mysterious, divine. 

Illustriously doth on paper shine." 

When, in 1775, the war of the revolution began 
to reduce the colonists to dependence upon their 



2enas Crane. 9 

own resources for manufactured goods, the prod- 
uct of three small mills was all the paper which 
Massachusetts could contribute to the general 
supply. Connecticut and New York could do a 
little better than this ; but the other colonies less, 
and most of them nothing at all. A paper famine 
ensued, and, to relieve it, what mills there were, 
were forced beyond their capacity — sent out paper 
only half made, and that half badly. Housewives 
had not learned to save their rags; and, as there 
was therefore great scarcity of raw material, the 
General Court urged this economy upon them 
as a patriotic duty, and ordered the Revolution- 
ary committees to appoint persons in their re- 
spective towns to receive rags and forward them 
to the mills. But the supply was still short, and 
in the haste of working them up, as they were ill- 
sorted, the queer colors which variegate the 
newspaper files of that era still bear witness. As 
the war, and its necessities continued, experience 
and better systematized management brought 
some improvement in the manufacture, but the 
scarcity continued, and with it, the public solici- 
tude for the welfare of the mills. The attention 
thus attracted to them was, of course, most in- 
tense in the places where they were located; and, 
there at least, the interest was not diminished 



10 Zenas Crane. 

when the peace of 1783 permitted the introduc- 
tion of foreign papers without fear of hostile 
cruisers or restriction by protective tariffs. The 
sections — then few and of limited extent — in 
which manufactures had sprung up and been 
fostered by the war saw their local interest en- 
dangered by foreign competition, and clung to 
them with new ardor. 

While this feeling was at its height, the home 
of Stephen Crane was on the banks of Punka- 
poag brook just above its junction with Neponset 
river; and just below that junction stood the 
Milton Paper Mill ; so that nothing could be 
more natural than the attachment to the paper 
manufacture with which his sons, Stephen, Jr., 
and Zenas, grew up. But how many remote, 
often trivial and apparently unconnected, circum- 
stances contributed to the building up near their 
cottage of the business which created that attach- 
ment, gave direction to their lives as well as 
those of their descendants, and laid the founda- 
tion of their fortunes, and of substantial benefits 
to distant communities ; how many acts of states- 
men and movements of armies which looked not 
to them or their affairs, as well as incidents in 
the lowly life of far-a-way villages over the sea, 
combined to transform two raw New England 



Zenas Crane. i i 

country lads into paper manufacturers, and se- 
cure the results which have followed. Doubtless, 
a similar train of causes go to give direction to 
every life which has any well defined direction 
at all; but this instance, by the clearness with 
which its steps can be traced, affords a striking 
illustration of the rule, and gives it peculiar 
value. The ambitious and courtly Hutchinson, 
obtaining a little favor for a new manufacturing 
enterprise near his county seat, neither foresaw 
nor cared for its effects upon the children of his 
humble neighbor Crane or their descendants; 
nor could he have piqued himself as sole bene- 
factor if he had, for quite as indispensable a link 
in the chain of circumstances of which we have 
spoken, was the chance enlistment of a poor but 
skillful paper-maker by a British recruiting ser- 
geant. We may guess the story where the record 
fails us, for it was one but too common in the 
good old days of Britain. A young paper-maker 
— very likely in the region of Maidstone in the 
English county of Kent, — perhaps disappointed 
in love or unsuccessful in business; perhaps 
transferred from the meshes of the dram-seller 
to those of Sergeant Kite — becomes a soldier 
and is sent across the waters to fight the French 
and Indians. Chance delays his regiment awhile 



t2 Zen AS Crane. 

in Boston ; chance reveals his skill in an art 
which sadly needs a teacher in that neighbor- 
hood ; chance gains him permission to supply 
that need : — chance, or shall we give it another 
name ? At any rate, the lost art is recovered by 
his instructions. Then he marches away with 
his fellows, whether to die, a hero, with Wolfe on 
the Plains of Abraham, or to return home, and 
as a hero recover his lost love or forfeited posi- 
tion, no man knows. But the result of his brief 
sojourn and work at Milton, we do know, for it 
has continued with ever increasins: and extendino; 
force for more than a century. Surely a passing 
tribute to the memory of that poor unknown 
man is not out of place here. 

Stephen Crane, Jr., having learned the paper- 
maker's trade in the mill at Milton, established 
himself at Newton Lower Falls. It does not 
appear that Zenas had any definite instruction 
before he left his Canton home in the art and 
mystery which became his business for life; but 
it goes without saying that a bright lad could 
not have lived so near a peculiarly interesting 
and fascinating manufacture without gaining at 
least a tolerably accurate general notion of it. 
And it was fitting that the pioneer paper-maker 
of Western Massachusetts should be inspired 



Zenas Crane. 13 

with a desire of his life-work by the pioneer paper 
mill of New England. 

At any rate when the time came for him to 
choose his employment for life, he repaired to 
his brother at Newton, and in his mill acquired 
the rudiments of his business. He then went 
to Worcester and completed his knowledge of 
the art in the mill of General Burbank. Mr. 
Burbank was a severe and exacting master, but 
very competent, and Zenas Crane profited both 
by his skill and his discipline. That he learned 
his trade well all his subsequent life shows ; and 
in no part of it was this, as well as his sound quick 
judgment, more conspicuous than in the first 
steps which he took after attaining his majority. 

Naturally of an independent disposition, his 
first thought was to look out for a proper loca- 
tion in which to set up a mill for himself. 
There were several requisites to be considered 
in making such a selection ; some of them dif- 
ferent from what would now be demanded. 
There must be water power sufficient to drive 
the engine, but easily controllable, the purest 
water in abundance for cleansing the rags and 
preparing the pulp, cheap land, and a surround- 
ing region which would afford provisions at 
low prices, as well as a good supply of rags, 



14 Zenas Crane. 

and, after they were manufactured, a market 
for a considerable portion of the product. 
Much of this is now changed. The home mar- 
ket has become of small consequence. Most of 
the materials for the Crane and other large 
establishments of this country are brought from 
the ends of the earth, and their paper is sent to 
the markets of the World. Now each mill can 
select its own specialty, and perfect itself in 
the skill and machinery needful for it, sure of 
somewhere finding a sale for the best goods 
which can be made. Unfortunately for the 
early manufacturers, the reverse of this was true 
long after iSoi. Then each little mill gathered 
its rags from a small circuit of country immedi- 
ately around itself; and, depending largely upon 
the same region as a market for its goods, made 
so far as it had the means and skill, all the dif- 
ferent qualities of writing, printing and wrap- 
ping paper, as that region happened for the 
moment to demand. The proprietors were glad 
to turn their hands to anything which would 
pay, however much frequent changes hindered 
general progress. Paper-makers shared this dif- 
ficulty with other American manufacturers. It 
was, or was supposed to be, a necessity of the 
times ; but it was a disadvantage nevertheless, 



Zenas Crane. 15 

and, as we shall see, only one of many which 
the early paper-makers in this country had to 
encounter. 

It was with a full knowledge of all this that, 
in the summer of 1799, Zenas Crane set out 
westward from Worcester, in quest of a location 
with the requisites mentioned; traveling on 
horseback, then the usual mode, and one admir- 
ably adapted to the purpose of the pioneer or 
explorer. He found at Springfield the mill es- 
tablished, probably by Eleazer Wright, prior to 
1 788, the germ of that which afterwards became 
noted under David Ames and his sons, D. and 
J. Ames. Avoiding competition with this well 
established concern, he pushed on across the 
Hoosac mountains until he reached the full and 
rapid, but cheaply controllable waters of the 
upper Housatonic and its branches. Here he 
passed his first night in Berkshire, sleeping at a 
small wayside inn near the border line between 
Dalton and Pittsfield. And pleasant dreams 
must have been his if they at all foreshadowed 
the pleasant changes which have since come to 
that immediate neighborhood from the manu- 
facture of which he was there the pioneer ; for 
very near the site on which that little hostelry 
stood are now clustered the fine residences of 



1 6 Zenas Crane. 

his son, Zenas M., and his grandsons Zenas, Jr., 
and Winthrop Murray, while not far away is the 
handsome home of his son James B., as well as 
the mills which, springing from the germs which 
he planted, now send out lavishly products which 
have a national fame, as ranking with the 
world's best. 

It is to be feared, however, that no such 
visions of the night cheered the lonely explorer, 
and that he rose in the morning to encounter 
such difificulties as might oppose him, sustained 
only by the elastic hopes of youth and a noble 
enthusiasm for his art — grand helpers both, and 
grandly to be stimulated by the scenes among 
which he found himself. He had reached a 
region of superb natural beauty, and moreover 
discovered a location exactly suited to his pur- 
pose as a paper-maker. In the town of Dalton, 
near the center of the famous Berkshire Hills, 
lies a sheltered valley through which flows the 
largest of the eastern branches of the Housa- 
tonic river, affording in its rapid descent sev- 
eral fine water powers. Of these Mr. Crane 
selected one v/hich has since proved itself ample 
for far greater work than he expected ever to 
demand of it. This, however, was comparative- 
ly a small consideration ; good water powers 



Zenas Crane. 17 

were abundant enough and cheap enough in 
1 799. But the location was exceptionally excel- 
lent in a particular of the first importance. A 
prime necessity of the paper-maker is an inex- 
haustible supply of the purest washing water; 
and nowhere could this need be more fully met 
than here. The whole eastern slope of the 
valley at this point as well as much of its other 
surroundings, and its bottom, is geologically a 
purely silicious formation, out of which gush 
innumerable springs as free from any injurious 
mineral combinations as natural water is ever 
found. Chemists, after a careful analysis pro- 
nounce even the lakelets on the mountain tops, 
and the rivulets which dash down its sides, a 
close approximation to distilled water. The ad- 
joining town of Pittsfield now piques itself upon 
receiving its water supply, from these quartz 
hills instead of drinking from its own lime and 
iron impregnated wells. In 1799, the peculiar 
qualities of different waters had attracted little 
general attention, but we may be sure that 
Zenas Crane did not neglect so important an 
element in his calculations ; for he needed to go 
but five miles further to find equally good water- 
power, in a locality more convenient to his 
markets, and with a community then just avvak- 



1 8 Zenas Crane. 

ening to the value of manufacturing enterprise, 
and eager to aid any reasonable project in that 
direction ; but the water there was unfortunate- 
ly loaded with deleterious minerals. To Mr. 
Crane, looking at all the circumstances with the 
eye of a paper-maker only, this was a fatal objec- 
tion. But, even in other respects than those 
mentioned, the locality which he selected was not 
unfavorable. Dalton had then nearly one thou- 
sand inhabitants, of whom the greater part lived 
within its present limits ; although it has since 
been greatly reduced by setting off territory in 
the incorporation of Hinsdale, while its popula- 
tion and wealth have been largely increased. 

The population in 1 799, was almost exclusively 
engaged in agriculture. Among its leading citi- 
zens was William Williams, son of the distin- 
guished Loyah'st Colonel and Judge Israel 
Williams of Hatfield, and himself a cousin of 
Ephraim Williams, the founder of Williams' Col- 
lege, who entrusted to him chiefly the execution 
of his benevolent design in behalf of that institu- 
tion; Calvin Waldo, a graduate of Dartmouth, a 
lawyer of repute, and a descendant of Peter 
Waldo, the founder of the persecuted Waldensian 
Christians; Dr. Perez Marsh, a graduate of Har- 
vard, a county judge, and a man of culture and 



Zenas Crane. 19 

benevolence ; as well as others of like character. 
Whether or not the intelligence of the people 
was one of the inducements which led Mr. Crane 
to select Dalton as a residence, it was certainly 
afterwards very agreeable to him as a well-read 
and thoughtful man, fond of congenial society. 

The town vv^as very near the center of the 
county, which then had a population much more 
evenly distributed than now ; while near it, on 
the east, was a prosperous section of Hampshire 
county. It might reasonably have been expected 
that this region, especially as it had two news- 
papers, would absorb a considerable portion of 
the product of a "one vat" mill, while the sur- 
plus would find a market at Albany, some thirty- 
five miles distant. The nearest mills to rival 
it were at Springfield, Mass., Bennington, Vt., 
Troy, N. Y., and Hartford, Conn, 

The cost of living in Dalton, so far as necessi- 
ties went, was small, and workmen had few 
temptations to extraordinary expenditures, ex- 
cept in the frequent taverns, whose seductions 
indeed, were sufficiently potent. 

Such was the locality which, in 1799, Zenas 
Crane selected for the first paper mill in Massa- 
chusetts west of the Connecticut river. But, 
although the site was selected in the summer of 



20 Zenas Crane. 

1799, the mill was not actually built until the 
spring of 1 801, as appears from the following 
curious advertisement which was printed in the 
Pittsfield Sun of February 8th, in that year: 

AMERICANS! 

Encourage your Manufactories, 

and they will improve. 

LADIES, SAVE YOUR RAGS! 

As the subscribers have it in contemplation to erect a 
paper mill in Dalton, the ensuing spring, and the busi- 
ness being very beneficial to the community at large, 
they flatter themselves that they shall meet with clue en- 
couragement. And that every woman who has the good 
of her country, and the interest of her own family, at 
heart, will patronize them by saving her rags, and send- 
ing them to their Manufactory, or to the nearest Store 
Keeper; for which the subscribers will give a generous 
price. Henry Wiswell, 

Zenas Crane, 
John Willard. 

Worcester, Feb. 8, iSoi. 

Advertisements of this kind, sometimes in 
quaint verse and often in equally quaint prose, 
were then, and for some years previous had been 
frequent in the columns of newspapers pub- 
lished in regions where attempts were making 
to establish paper mills. We have already 
quoted one from a Boston paper of 1769, and 
they were still needful in 1801. The supply of 
rags from all parts of the world was not only 
not the vast and thoroughly systematized busi- 



Zenas Crane. 21 

ness it now is, but it was scarcely possible to 
dream of the necessity for such a system ; much 
less of its actual establishment. The raw mate- 
rials for paper-making were sought within a 
limited territory around the mill. Home-made 
linen which filled the place in household econo- 
my that cotton cloth now does was a superior 
article for the paper-maker; but unfortunately 
for him, however happy for the wearers, it was a 
fabric not soon reduced to rags ; soft as silk, it 
would wear like iron. Nor had the tin peddler, 
in his rounds, taught the New England house- 
wife the thrift that lies in savino: her rajjs, when 
made. Indeed it was not he, but the post rider, 
who gave the first practical lessons in this now 
universal frugality. In 1799 there were only 
five post-offices in Berkshire county, and in 1801 
but seven. Probably at the latter date there 
were not a dozen within thirty miles of Dalton 
in any direction, the towns in which they were 
located being denominated post towns. That 
nearest Dalton was at Pittsfield, and there Mr. 
Crane, or his messenger, received his mail mat- 
ter until 181 2, when a post-office was established 
at Dalton. 

The mail matter of the whole region was sent 
to the post towns, and no provision was made 



22 Zenas Crane. 

by the government for its further distribution. 
But, as it was manifestly impossible for the peo- 
ple of the other towns to be continually running 
to the more favored one with the remote chance 
of finding a letter or newspaper, a system of 
"post riders" sprang up, instituted either by the 
carriers themselves, the publishers of newspa- 
pers, or other enterprising parties. They were 
a sort of private express which took the mail 
matter, each for his own route, from the post 
ofifice and delivered it at every man's door. Nat- 
urally they became the medium of much minor 
traffic, and also the agents of newspaper publish- 
ers. There was little money in circulation 
either in coin or bank notes ; barter was the or- 
dinary mode of trade, aided by a system of 
mutual credits under which balances were, or 
were supposed to be, adjusted at stated intervals. 
The post rider, who ordinarily made his rounds 
on horseback, in winter brought out his sleigh 
to transport the produce in which he received 
his newspaper subscriptions and other dues. It 
did not take the post rider and the newspaper 
long to make the careful housewife understand 
that the establishment of a paper mill among 
them had converted a material, which had before 
been almost worthless into something as good 



Zenas Crane. 23 

as coin of the realm, and a good deal better than 
most rag money of that period. The tin ped- 
dler soon followed up the lesson; and from 
these sources, for many years, the larger portion 
of the raw material of the paper manufacture 
was derived. Indeed, we may say, that it was 
almost exclusively so derived. The cramping 
effect of these methods was severely felt by Mr. 
Crane, as well as other early American paper- 
makers. But we are getting in advance of our 

story. 

In the interval between his prospecting for a 
location in 1799 and the appearance, early in 
1 80 1, of the advertisement we have quoted, Mr. 
Crane was probably at Worcester, perhaps earn- 
ing money to help carry out his project, and 
certainly securing the partners whose names 
appear with his own. Only one of these, how- 
ever, finally took part in the enterprise; the 
name of Willard disappearing, and that of 
Daniel Gilbert taking its place for a while. 

The site selected was upon a fine waterfall, 
near the entrance of a beautiful and romantic 
glen, and with an outlook toward some fertile 
farms. It was owned by Martin Chamberlin, a 
son of Joseph, one of the early settlers of the 
town. It seems that he was a very cautious 



24 Zenas Crane. 

man, and so doubtful of the practicability of es- 
tablishing a paper mill there, or of the persever- 
ance of the young projectors, that he would at 
first give only an oral permission " to build and 
try," with the promise of a sale when the thing 
"should be done." The deed was given Decem- 
ber 25, 1801, conveying to Henry Wiswell, 
Zenas Crane and Daniel Gilbert fourteen acres, 
one hundred and forty-nine rods of land, to- 
gether with a paper mill and appendages thereon 
standing, for the consideration of ^194. "The 
thing had been done." 

The price paid was a fair one for the land and 
water privilege as rates then were. The hon- 
esty of Martin Chamberlin, and the confidence 
placed in his word were highly honorable to 
him, for if, as the evidence seems to show, his 
promise to convey was merely oral, and not a 
bond for a deed, it was of no effect in law, so 
that he could have held both the land and the 
buildings erected upon it. 

The building erected was a one vat mill, its 
main part being of two stories; the upper used 
as a drying loft. It had a capacity or " day's 
work" of twenty posts. A post is one hundred 
and twenty-five sheets of paper. 

The sizes made at this mill for writing paper 



Zenas Crane. 25 

were foolscap and folio — the latter being after- 
wards cut into letter sizes by hand. The size 
and form of the book and news paper were 
adapted to the requirements of customers. 
When the mill was started there were two week- 
ly papers of moderate size in the county; the 
Suii printed at Pittsfield and the Western Star 
at Stockbridge. The Sun was intensely Dem- 
ocratic in politics, which were then conducted 
with a bitterness since unknown, and Hon. 
Phineas Allen, its editor and publisher, was a 
strong partisan, but he was a warm friend of Mr. 
Crane and his enterprise, and purchased much 
of his supply of paper from him. Notwithstand- 
ing political differences the personal friendship 
of Mr. Allen and Mr. Crane continued through 
life. When the demand for either writing or 
printing paper in Berkshire was fully supplied a 
convenient and generally a ready market was 
found at Albany, when the country was not 
flooded with foreign goods. 

The skilled workmen employed were an en- 
gineer at three dollars per week, a vatman and a 
coucher at three dollars and a half each, without 
board ; one additional workman, and two girls at 
at seventy-five cents a week each, and a lay-boy 
at sixty cents, all being boarded. What Mr. 



26 Zenas Crane. 

Crane received as Superintendent and general 
manager we do not know, but a few years later 
his partners allowed him nine dollars a week. 

The prospecting journey of Zenas Crane in 
1799 was almost exactly coincident with the ex- 
periments in France and Scotland, which led to 
the invention of the Fourdrinier paper-making 
machine and the introduction of chloride of 
lime in bleaching ; but it was several years 
before those improvements were perfected and 
generally adopted in Europe ; many before they 
were used commonly in America. Rags re- 
ceived what bleaching they had, before they 
became rags, and the quality of the paper 
depended very much upon the care with which 
they were sorted, which often in hasty work was 
little enough. Dyed rags could not be used at 
all except in wrapping papers, and possibly in 
some cases where tints were required. Blue 
rags dyed with indigo were treasured up to be 
made into wrappers for manufactured tobacco, 
the dealers in which rejected all papers dyed in 
the making, probably as affecting the flavor of 
the weed. 

Even when the rags were well sorted, much 
depended upon the skill of the workman — a very 
uncertain quantity. Paper-makers were much 



Zenas Crane. 27 

given in those days to " tramping." They came 
along, one by one, seeking a job, which was 
given them if they were needed. If not they 
got supper, lodging and breakfast, and a quire of 
broken paper, for which they made such return 
as they could, and then sent on their way, after 
a parting dram of spirits — for this was long 
before the beginning of the temperance refor- 
mation. If there was work for them, they 
stayed while it lasted, or until the spirit of rest- 
lessness took them away. Many of them were 
English or Scotch, and the drinking habit was 
almost universal. Of course there was great 
diversity in their skill, and also in their capacity 
for exercising it at different times. All this was 
of course, trying and troublesome to the mana- 
ger of the mill. He was also subject to much 
anxiety on account of the extremely variable 
character of his markets, which was the more 
troublesome as it took weeks to perform the 
work which improved processes now render it 
possible to do in hours. 

Under these advantages and difficulties inci- 
dent to the times, Mr. Crane conducted the mill 
since known as " The Old Berkshire," until in 
1807, he sold his undivided third part to his 
partner, Wiswell. He then betook himself to 



28 Zenas Crane. 

mercantile business in the eastern part of the 
town, and conducted it with success until 1810, 
gaining also no little business knowledge and 
experience, which afterwards came in good play. 

While thus employed, he married, Nov. 30, 
1809, Miss Lucinda, daughter of Gaius and 
Lucretia [Babcock] Brewer of Wilbraham in 
Hampden County, showing in this the same ex- 
cellent judgment which governed him in all 
other important acts of his life. In a life long 
companionship, she proved well fitted to be the 
encourager and helper of one burdened with 
such cares and labors as fell to the lot of a pio- 
neer manufacturer. 

In 1S06 the second paper mill in Berkshire 
was built, at Lee, by Samuel Church, and in 1809 
a third was built, at Dalton, by Joseph Cham- 
berlin, upon land owned by Martin Chamberlin, 
who retained his old cautious habits, and, not 
until " after the thing was done," sold to David 
Carson, Joseph Chamberlin and Henry Wiswell, 
thirteen acres and seventy-two rods of land with 
the new mill thereon standing. The water priv- 
ilege was equally good with that of the old one 
and located about an eighth of a mile south of 
it. It was started by the firm of Carson, Cham- 
berlin & Wiswell in the fall of 1809, David 



Zenas Crane. 29 

Carson who had come to Dalton that year and 
been engaged in the first mill during the 
month of August, being the chief manager. 
David Carson reached Dalton under similar cir- 
cumstances to Mr. Crane, and after a long and 
prosperous career "died Sept. 20, 1858, aged 75 
years," as his monument in the Dalton cemetery 
shows. Thus he was a lad of sixteen when Mr. 
Crane first came to Dalton. In the year 181 2, 
he purchased an interest in the first, or Old 
Berkshire mill of which in 18 16 he became sole 
owner. It was conducted with eminent success 
by himself and his sons Thomas G., and Wil- 
liam W., until the year 1867, when it was sold 
to a company. In 1872, it was burned and re- 
built on a larger scale, as one of the most com- 
plete mills in the country. In 1884 it is opera- 
ted by the Carson & Brown Co., in which the 
owners are John D. Carson, a grandson of 
David, Zenas Crane, jr., a grandson of Zenas, 
the pioneer, who first selected and occupied the 
site, Charles O. Brown, president of the com- 
pany, who was initiated into the mysteries of 
the paper-makers' craft, in the "Old Red Mill," 
and William W. Carson of Newburg, N. Y. 

In order to make our account of the Old 
Berkshire mill consecutive, we have interrupted 



30 Zenas Crane. 

the main story of Mr. Crane's life, to which we 
now return. On the sixth of April 1810, he 
bought David Carson's interest in the "new 
mill" which subsequently became famous as 
the " Old Red Mill," and it was run for a 
while by the firm of Crane, Wiswell, Chamber- 
lin and Cole ; and afterwards by Crane, Cham- 
berlin and Cole, until, in 1822. Mr. Crane, who 
had from the date of his purchase been super- 
intendent and chief manager, became sole 
proprietor. 

During all this time, and indeed as long as 
his business life lasted, Mr. Crane had to en- 
counter in a greater or less degree the obstacles 
and annoyances which inevitably beset the path 
of early manufacturing enterprise in America; 
several of which we have mentioned. Some of 
the more petty, but also the more vexatious, of 
these diminished as the morals and manners of 
the country improved, and his own position be- 
came more assured ; but the more formidable 
continued to impede his progress to the last. 
Foreign competition especially was discouraging 
to effort and outlay. This was but little checked 
beneficially by fluctuating tariff, although it was 
in a degree counterbalanced by increased home 
consumption; but what was more exasperating 



Zenas Crane, 31 

was the absurd preference of the silly public for 
European goods over American fabrics of equal 
and often much superior merit. It was long be- 
fore good American writing papers could be 
sold to advantage, exce'pt with the imprint of 
French or English houses. It is said that this 
ridiculous and unpatriotic public prejudice was 
shrewdly overcome by some spirited American 
manufacturers, who gratified it by sending the 
inferior products of their mills to market under 
the names of French firms in gorgeous Parisian 
wrappers printed in Pittsfield> while they persist- 
ently placed their own imprints upon their best 
goods. The equality of American paper with 
any of foreign make has now become so fully 
established and acknowledged that this story has 
passed into tradition ; but the state of things 
which it indicates and which undoubtedly existed 
until after the death of Zenas Crane was ex- 
ceedingly discouraging to honorable and am- 
bitious effort. 

Nevertheless such effort he made from pure 
devotion to his art, no country paper-maker 
could then look for wide-spread fame from his 
best success. Mr. Crane himself could not have 
anticipated the honors which his life work has 
gained for his name, not only among those of 



32 Zenas Crane. 

his own craft, but from the general public. In 
what he did his motives were simply love of his 
trade, a desire to build up in it a business which 
he might bequeath to his children, winning for 
himself and them an honorable living and a 
respectable position in the community and the 
Commonwealth. 

These, to be sure, were motives sufficient to 
inspire him with a desire to do even more than 
was possible under the circumstances in which 
he was placed. Dalton was remote from the 
great business centres of the country, and from 
the avenues of travel which led to them until the 
year 1842, (three years before Mr. Crane died,) 
the Boston & Albany railroad, which passes 
through it, was opened. Before that date the 
county of Berkshire was, as compared with what 
it now is, a secluded nook, little moved by the 
mercurial influences which drive on the great 
world-centres, instead of responding to them, as 
it now does, in almost equal measure with the 
metropolis. The advance of this county in man- 
ufactures, although moderate, was however, 
decided ; and that it was not m.ore rapid was due 
to languid markets and the slow accumulation 
of capital rather than to lack of apprehension of 
what was being done elsewhere in their respec- 



Zenas Crane. 33 

tive arts. Mr. Crane, in particular, who was 
noted for making books his constant companions, 
and as a constant reader of whatever of value he 
could procure, must have been well aware of the 
Fourdrinier inventions for paper machinery, as 
well as the discoveries of Scheele and Berthollet 
regarding chlorine, the preparation of chloride of 
lime, by Tennent, and its subsequent use in 
bleaching. But the first Fourdrinier machines 
made in America were as late as 1835, and their 
cost was three times as great as that of a com- 
plete mill of the old pattern. They did not reach 
Berkshire until 1848. In the meantime Mr. 
Crane in 1831, placed in his mill a very satisfac- 
tory cylinder paper-making machine, invented 
and patented by John Ames of Springfield, and 
in 1834 he added the cylinder dryers. Early in 
the century he adopted the use of chloride of lime 
in bleaching. Other minor improvements in the 
methods of manufacture were adopted from time 

to time. 

In his management Mr. Crane had been dis- 
creet as well as enterprising and liberal ; econom- 
ical and thrifty without the slightest taint or 
suspicion of dishonor. In his intercourse with 
his employes he was kindly, open-hearted and 
open-handed, but was esteemed somewhat re- 



34 Zenas Crane. 

served, although probably not more so than is 
now the custom with the heads of manufactur- 
ing establishments. It is certain that some of 
his employes, who have attained high standing 
in business and social life, remember him not 
only with the greatest esteem, but with marked 
gratitude and affection. From one of his early 
apprentices, William Renne, an enterprising cit- 
izen of Pittsfield, we gather much of this. 

The career of Zenas Crane as a successful 
paper-maker, building up a business from the 
smallest beginnings, although not a rare case, is 
in itself worthy of note; but the honors due to 
the memory of a pioneer are to be gauged not 
so much by what he himself accomplished direct- 
ly, as by the achievements of those who have 
followed in the path which he discovered and 
marked out. Those of Mr. Crane are to be 
measured somewhat by the dimensions which the 
paper manufacture has attained in the region 
where it was unknown before he introduced it, 
and wherever it has extended from that region. 
The county of Berkshire covers but a small part 
of that region, but within its borders alone there 
are now twenty-five paper-making establishments, 
mostly on a large scale, employing an aggregate 
capital of about three million dollars and send- 



Zenas Crane. 35 

ing out an annual product of the value of over 
three and a-half millions. 

This is a very respectable, not to say splendid, 
outgrowth from the little one vat mill planted 
painfully on the banks of the Housatonic in 1801, 
whose chief capital was the brains of its chief 
manager, and whose annual product was of ex- 
tremely variable and uncertain value, depending 
to a large extent upon circumstances entirely be- 
yond his control. 

We do not mean to claim that all this vast 
expansion of the paper-making business in Berk- 
shire in eighty-four years is the direct outgrowth 
of Zenas Crane's pioneership, although it cannot 
be denied that a very large portion of it is so, as 
well as a wide extension of intelligent and profitable 
paper manufacture elsewhere. Still a not very 
indirect result of the earliest paper mill in Berk- 
shire, all the later ones certainly are. 

Far be it from us to depreciate, in the slightest 
degree, the intellect and skill, inherited or obtain- 
ed by culture and study, which in late years have 
built up so grandly, and which so now wisely 
govern, the manufactures of Berkshire County. 
We know well what cool and shrewd judgment, 
what perfect intimacy with all that pertains to 
his business, from general principles to the most 



36 Zenas Crane. 

minute details, and what forbearing patience are 
needed to make a permanently successful manu- 
facturer of any kind here or elsewhere. But we 
know also how much depends upon the original 
plant. The authority of Holy Writ was not re- 
quired to teach us that, though " we plant but a 
bare seed it may chance of wheat or some other 
grain, God giveth it a body as it pleases Him," 
nor that it always does please Him to " give to 
each seed a body of its own ; " that men reap 
what they sow. And the same law applies to all 
the works of men. It pleases God, as all history 
tells us, that as the sowing is so the harvest shall 
be. Without that law utter confusion and chaos 
would reign both in physics and in morals. Its 
operation is everywhere manifest in the history 
of our whole country, where the children reap 
still abundantly what the fathers sowed, notwith- 
standing the multitudinous intermingling in later 
years, of devil-spread tares. 

To apply the general principle to this particu- 
lar case, the manufactures of Berkshire afford a 
remarkable exemplification of the rule. A large 
proportion of them have descended in the same 
families through two or three generations, each 
of which has preserved and added to whatever 
of skill or capital it received from that which 



Zenas Crane. 37 

preceded it. And even where this has not been 
the case as to families, it is from the seed pain- 
fully planted and painfully nursed in certain lo- 
calities, from generation to generation, that those 
localities reap the rich harvest of the present. 
Inasmuch as the seed was good, it was worth 
all the painstaking which it cost to make the 
crops rich and perennial. 

The special local development of the original 
"plant," and its influence upon the fortunes of 
families and communities, are nowhere more con- 
spicuously displayed than in the manufactures of 
Berkshire. We cannot go into the full history 
of that development. To do that faithfully, with 
just and impartial credit to all who have given 
capital, brains and energy to advance it, would 
require long and laborious research to ascertain 
the exact truth, and a volume of no small dimen- 
sions to print it. But we know enough of the 
story, as all Berkshire does, or might on little 
inquiry, to be well assured that the present great 
paper industry of the county is the natural and 
legitimate outgrowth of the pioneership of Zenas 

Crane. 

It is true that if he had not permanently es- 
tablished the business, and drawn attention to 
the special facilities for the paper manufacture 



38 Zenas Crane. 

which the town and county afforded, others might 
have done so, as they did introduce into the 
county the cotton and woolen manufactures. 
But, so far as paper-making is concerned, nobody 
came to Berkshire to do anything of the kind 
for five years after Mr. Crane's mill was in opera- 
tion, nor to Dalton for eight years; while there 
is almost an absolute certainty that the paper- 
makers who came in those years were induced 
to do so by his pioneering. That was the germ 
from which the paper-making industry of Berk- 
shire indisputably sprang. Whether, if that had 
been blighted before it came to fruition, the same 
great interests might have grown up from a later 
planting, as a late frost sometimes compels the 
farmer to replant his corn, is immaterial. No 
such blight occurred. Whittier tells us that 

" Of all sad words of voice or pen, 
The saddest are these, ' It might have been.' " 

True as this may be, " It might not have been " 
are words of significance and often of sadness. 
In this case, however, neither phrase would have 
either significance or sadness, for the plain rea- 
son that what mi^ht have been was cut off and 
anteceded by what actually was, and in a manner 
leaving no change to be desired. The same 
story cannot have two beginnings. 



^ 



Zenas Crane. 39 

If the influence of Mr. Crane's early labors 
had been confined entirely to his own descen- 
dants, the result would still be notable. It would 
be of striking interest barely to contrast the 
little wooden mill and the rude appliances slowly 
obtained in 1801 with the costly buildings and 
marvellous automatic machinery which have ap- 
peared as if by magic at the call of the wealth 
and skill which had their origin in that simple 
early home. But we must content ourselves 
with the briefest possible summary. 

In the year 1842 Mr. Crane transferred his 
interest in the Old Red Mill and the business in 
general to his eldest sons, Zenas Marshall and 
James Brewer, who were already his partners. 
In the same year, the opening of the railroad 
between Boston and Albany through Berkshire 
gave them facilities for reaching not only the 
city, but some of the local markets, the lack of 
which had embarrassed their father. These in- 
creased facilities stimulated all the industries of 
the county and inspired all its business men with 
new courage and ambition. Under this and 
other favoring auspices, the Messrs. Crane con- 
tinued steadily and judiciously to increase the 
capacity of the Old Red Mill, and improve the 
quality of its work, until it was burned in the 



40 Zenas Crane. 

fall of 1870. The loss, including building, ma- 
chinery, stock, etc., was total. The building had 
long been familiar to the people of the county 
and to its habitual visitors, and is missed by them 
from its picturesque view. There was no insur- 
ance upon any part of the loss by the fire, but 
the mill was immediately rebuilt of stone, upon 
a larger scale, and fitted with the best made ma- 
chinery then to be obtained, which has been bet- 
tered as often as new inventions and improve- 
ments have given opportunity. It is now called 
" The Pioneer Mill," in honor of the pioneer, 
Zenas Crane, although the " Old Berkshire " 
occupies the site which he first built upon. 

Following the tendency of the times in all 
manufactures, or rather considerably in advance 
of them, the firm of Crane & Co. gradually came 
to devote themselves to specialties. They have 
now long been known as the bank note paper- 
makers of this country. They supply not only 
a large part of the general market, but our own 
and several foreign governments. 

In 1879 they were awarded the contract, which 
they still hold, for supplying the United States 
government with all the paper w^hich is required 
for national bank bills. United States bonds, 
certificates and treasury notes. In order to 



Zenas Crane. 41 

properly fill this contract they purchased the 
fine brick mill which had been built at Coltsville. 
a few years before by Thomas Colt. This 
village is in Pittsfield, but the mill is very 
near the Dalton line, and but a short distance 
from Cranesville, the village in Dalton, composed 
chiefly of the residences, mills, and other build- 
ings of the Crane family in its different branches. 
It is not far from the site upon which stood the 
little rural inn where the first Zenas Crane passed 
his first night in Berkshire. This is popularly 
called " The Government Mill," it being devoted 
to the manufacture of paper for the national 
government, whose flag constantly floats before 
it, and by whose officers it is constantly watched 
and guarded to prevent robbery of the peculiar 
distinctive paper which is made in it. For the 
same reason, several of its employes are detailed 
from the Treasury department at Washington. 
It is unnecessary to say that the work done here 
has the most unqualified approval of the Depart- 
ment. There has not been a suspicion of any 
irregularity upon the part of even an employe. 
Winthrop Murray, the youngest son of Z. M. 
Crane, is the immediate manager of the busi- 
ness. The Pioneer Mill makes a considerable 
quantity of parchment and bond papers, but its 



42 Zenas Crane. 

chief product is bank note paper. Of this, setting 
aside entirely what they make under contract at 
the Government Mill, for the United States, the 
Messrs. Crane, at the Pioneer Mill alone, prob- 
ably send out more than any other firm in the 
world of the paper on which the world's paper 
circulating medium is printed. And this is 
simply because by long experience and patiently 
acquired skill they have been able to produce 
an article which possesses in the highest degree 
the elements required for banking purposes ; 
great strength of texture and a surface perfectly 
fitted for writing and engraving. This is 
something quite different from the varied and 
perplexing market which was offered Zenas 
Crane in the earlier years of his enterprise; but 
it is only what the harvest is to the seed. 

In connection with the Crane bank note manu- 
facture there is a curious incident, which is worth 
telling for the instruction which it carries. In 
the year 1846, Zenas Marshall Crane, now the sen- 
ior member of the Crane paper-making family 
was a young man, and much inclined to inventing 
methods of improving and raising the art. Among 
other things, it occurred to him at that time 
that the introduction into the fiber of silk threads, 
representing the denomination of bills by their 



Zenas Crane. 43 

number, would prevent counterfeiting by raising 
the amount from a lower to a higher figure. One, 
two and three dollar bills were then issued by 
all State banks, which were all the banks there 
then were. The opinions of conservative bank- 
ing men discouraged Mr. Crane so that he did 
not apply for a patent upon this valuable inven- 
tion. Nearly twenty years afterwards, conserva- 
tism having taken another and more practical 
form, the National Government found it neces- 
sary to establish a national paper currency. Then 
the practical men at the head of the financial 
affairs of the nation deemed it expedient to 
adopt essentially the plan devised by Mr. Crane 
to prevent the counterfeiting of its paper. When 
this was done, an Englishman appeared at 
Washington with a claim as patentee. It fortu- 
nately happened, however, that Mr. Crane's idea 
had, long before the date of this patent, been 
adopted by a few American banks, among them 
being the Mahaiwe of Great Harrington, the 
Bay State of Lawrence, and the Hamilton of 
Boston. These institutions had preserved, and 
probably still hold, copies of their issues upon 
the Crane paper, which were forwarded to 
Washington, and saved the Government from 
the payment to a foreign party of a royalty 



44 Zenas Crane. 

probably quite equal in amount to any profit 
which Crane & Co. have ever received from their 
contract for furnishing national bank paper. 
Among the minor points in the history of the 
national banking system, this incident seems 
worth preserving. 

About midway between the site of the Old 
Red Mill, now occupied by the Pioneer Mill of 
Crane & Co., and the Government Mill, is a good 
water power, upon which a stone factory was 
erected in 1836 for the manufacture of woolen 
goods. The company which built it sank under 
the financial storms which commenced in the 
succeeding year, and the building remained un- 
occupied until 1850, when, under a lease, it was 
converted by the firm of Crane & Wilson into 
the Bay State paper mill, the active partners in 
the firm being Seymour Crane, the youngest son 
of the pioneer, and James Wilson, a skilful work- 
man, who learned his trade with him, becoming 
his apprentice in 181 7. The Bay State mill 
made buff and other writing papers, the buff be- 
ing a favorite with Thurlow Weed, the New 
York editor and politician, and with others, who 
conceived that the constant use of white paper 
is injurious to the eye. 

In 1865, this property was rented by Zenas 



Zenas Crane. 45 

Crane, Jr., the eldest son of Z. M. Crane, who 
afterwards bought up all the interests in the 
property which had arisen in the various trans- 
fers. It was run by him successfully until it was 
burned. May 15, 1877, and was immediately re- 
built on a larger scale by the new firm of Zenas 
Crane, Jr. & Brother, the junior partner being 
Winthrop Murray Crane. This business is man- 
aged by the senior partner, and is devoted to 
the manufacture of Ladies' fine stationery. 

If it were not considered out of place here, 
we could fill many interesting pages with the 
details of the present Crane mills, (located in the 
same place as in 1801,) and their noted pro- 
ducts. It is, however, proper to speak of them 
thus briefly, in order to show the good effect and 
result of a wise beginning. But for the sound 
judgment exercised by the pioneer in establish- 
ing the business, where so many requisites for 
superior products were found, the present suc- 
cess and fame of his descendants might not have 
been achieved. 

In this we would not detract from the labors 
of the present generation, whose enterprise and 
skill have not only maintained but improved and 
enlarged the business to meet the demands of 
progress. 



46 Zenas Crane. 

But the influence of Zenas Crane upon his 
own descendants has extended beyond Berkshire 
county. In 1847, his third son, Lindley Murray 
Crane established a mill at Ballston Spa, N. Y., 
where he resided until his death, in 1879. His 
grandsons also, Robert B. and James A., sons 
of James B. Crane, under the firm name of Crane 
Brothers, have built up paper works at Westfield, 
in Hampden county, where they manufacture 
ledger and linen papers, baskets, etc. Surely, 
by pushing the paper manufacture into new varie- 
ties and new localities, the descendants of Zenas 
Crane have proved that the pioneer spirit has 
not deserted the family. They honor their ancestor 
by following in his footsteps, and pushing on 
where he only pointed the way. And still they 
all look back with reverence and pride to that 
little mill with its imperfect appliances and its 
limited and almost local market. 

Mr. Crane was something more than a mere 
paper-maker. Like every man who succeeds in 
a great business, he necessarily gave to it by far 
the larger portion of his time and thought. But 
his devotion was not such as to narrow his mind; 
it was far from absorbing all his energies or fill- 
ing his whole heart. He recognized to the full 
all his family, social, religious and political duties, 



Zenas Crane. 47 

and performed them like a kindly and wise man, 
a good husband, father and citizen. 

"rhe quality of wisdom was sharply needful to 
a kindly and genial nature under the social cus- 
toms which prevailed around him during his 
younger and middle life. Society was very 
jovial in Berkshire when he took part in it, and 
the class of men with whom he was brought 
into the most intimate association, however high 
their standing in the community, were no more 
free from its frailties than were others. In his 
intercourse with them he was no ascetic, nor did 
he affect any ostentatious superiority of virtue ; 
but a wise and sensitive self-respect kept him far 
within the limits of indulgence to which he might 
then have ventured with little fear of reproach 
except from his own heart, and he thus escaped 
dangers upon which not a few of those in like 
position with himself made shipwreck of life, 
health or fortune, if not of all three. Doubtless, 
the sources of pleasure which he found in books 
helped to render more easy this wholesome self- 
restraint, but it was in no small degree due to^ a 
delicate, innate sense of propriety and the dig- 
nity of manhood, which shrank from degrading 
indulgence or coarse pleasures. 

Akin to this feeling was a keen susceptibility 



48 Zenas Crane. 

in regard to his personal reputation which dis- 
tinguished him and rendered him acutely alive 
to even the slightest aspersion of his character. 
A gentleman who, when a youth, resided in Mr. 
Crane's family, tells us an anecdote illustrative 
of this trait. One evening he came home more 
excited than Mrs. Crane or our informant ever 
saw him, before or afterwards ; for he was habitu- 
ally a calm man. Now, he could neither eat nor 
rest. He explained that a neighbor, who was a 
strong political opponent — a harsh and rude 
man, but of some local influence — had been cir- 
culating some false reports about him, which he 
was determined not to let pass. His wife begged 
him to wait until he had slept, or at least until 
he had taken supper. He could do neither until 
the matter was settled, and he set out to seek the 
offender. In a few hours — anxious ones, no 
doubt, at home — he returned with a full written 
retraction, or denial, of the calumnies, and his 
usual quiet manner completely restored. But 
our informant avers that no business or other 
troubles ever seemed to disturb him so much as 
these probably not very severe stories. 

In politics Mr. Crane belonged first to the 
Federal and then to the Whig party, organiza- 
tions more scrupulous than any others which the 



Zenas Crane. 49 

country has known, as to the character of the 
men whom they elevated to office ; for they re- 
garded office as a genuine elevation. By the 
support of these parties Mr. Crane was several 
times chosen to the State Legislature, beginning 
in 181 1, and to the Executive Council, under 
Gov. Edward Everett, in 1836 and 1837. There 
were at that time nine Councillors annually 
elected by the General Court. The last chosen 
from Berkshire before Mr. Crane was Hon. 
Henry Hubbard, of Pittsfield, and his immediate 
successors were Hon. Henry Shaw, of Lanes- 
boro, and Hon. Edward A. Newton, of Pittsfield, 
all of them his warm personal as well as political 
friends. In his place as Councillor and in the 
House of Representatives, his practical knowl- 
edge, extensive general information and pure 
principles made him of peculiar value, and the 
same qualities distinguished him in the various 
town offices which he held from time to time. 

It is of interest to know in this connection 
that Mr. Crane's son, Zenas Marshall, who be- 
came a leading member of the Free Soil party 
in 1848, and joined the Republican party in the 
county upon its organization, was chosen one of 
the Senators from Berkshire in 1856 and 1857, 
and Executive Councillor in 1862 and 1863, with 



50 Zenas Crane. 

Gov. Andrew, and that his son, Zenas, Jr., after 
being a member of the State House of Repre- 
sentatives, was elected in November, 1884, Ex- 
ecutive Councillor for 1885, that being his sec- 
ond year with Gov. Robinson, and serving in the 
same Council Chamber that his grandfather did 
fifty years before. There are eight Councillors 
now in the State, and the eighth district now 
extends as far east as Amherst and Ware. 

The Crane history thus furnishes us an in- 
stance, rare in this country of constant business 
and political changes, of a family all whose mem- 
bers for three generations have adhered strictly 
and generally successfully to one manufacture, 
and mostly in the same town; while each genera- 
tion has furnished a member of the same Chris- 
tian name to the Executive Council of the State. 
Some peculiar and substantial family traits are 
required to account for this. Such things do 
not come by chance. 

We have endeavored in this brief sketch to 
relate accurately the history of the first paper- 
maker in Berkshire, and to give a correct esti- 
mate of his character, and the value of his life- 
work to the community, In order to do the last, 
it has been necessary to go somewhat beyond 
the events of his own life. With regard to his 



Zenas Crane. 51 

biography proper, we have sought for and used 
conscientiously all the testimony we could find 
in written or printed matter, or gather from the 
lips of those who knew him well in life; but 
very little of it from his own descendants. And 
it is a fact as worthy of note as any in the sketch, 
that with the closest scrutiny and in the report 
of all classes of people, we have found nothing 
which his most sensitive friend could wish to 
suppress or conceal. He was surely a citizen to 
be remembered with gratitude by the people of 
Dalton and Berkshire, and with honor by all. 

Mr. Crane died June 29, 1845, at the age of 
68. His widow survived him until May 2, 1872, 
when she died, having attained the ripe age of 
84 years. 



Zenas Crane. 53 



NOTES. 

I. Taking counsel from the wisdom of Scott's " Richard Mo- 
noplies," the writer of these memoirs prefers to discover and call 
attention to his own errors, although he is conscious that if he did 
not some good-natured critical friend would be sure to do it for 
him, and more sharply. Therefore in carefully reading the text 
since it was in type he recognizes that he was inadvertently led 
into a sadly untenable supposition in regard to the British soldier 
who gave his aid in reviving the paper mill at Milton. Inasmuch 
as Wolfe was killed in September, 1759, this soldier who was doing 
such good service at Boston, in 1760, could hardly have died with 
him. In any case he must have belonged to the army of Lord 
Amherst and not that of General Wolfe, which sailed directly from 
England for Quebec touching at Louisbourg. Amherst's forces did 
not reach Canada until the summer of 1760, and if the date of the 
incident at Milton is correctly given in Munsell's " Chronology of 
Paper Making," the service must have been performed in the 
winter or early spring of that year by a member of some regiment 
detained at Boston until the later spring enabled it to march. 

II. I have also learned since the earlier portions of the main 
text was printed, that Zenas Crane was not only the pioneer of 
"hand paper" making in Massachusetts, west of the Connecticut 
river, but a member, (and necessarily from his experience an influ- 
ential one,) of the pioneer firm in " machine made " paper-making ; 
that which owning the Thatcher Mill at Lee, about the year 1826, 
placed in it the first paper-making machinery introduced in that 
section. This fact is of interest as showing that the spirit which 
actuated Mr. Crane at the first was not accidental and transient 
but innate and permanent. 



Zenas Crane. 55 



GENEALOGY. 

Henry Crane came from England to the 
present Milton, (then Dorchester,) Massachu- 
setts, in the year 1648 or 1649. His second 
son was Stephen, who married, July 2nd, 1676, 
Mary Denison. The second son of this Stephen 
and Mary was Benjamin, born December 1 7th, 
1692, in Braintree. This Benjamin married, 
December 27th, 1722, Abigail Houghton and 
another Stephen was born to them, May 19th, 
1734, who was their fifth son. This Stephen 
was married in 1762 to Susannah Babcock, and 
these last were the parents of Zenas Crane the 
subject of this memoir, who was born in Canton, 
Mass., May 9th, 1777, and died in Dalton, June 
29th, 1845. 



